EARLYSCOTTISH HOSPITALS AND REGULATIONS FOR ~SOLAT~ON IT has already been mentioned that the early hospitals were connected with religious foundations, and that those who carried out the treatment of the sicli in them were at first clerics. It should be remembered that the nature of a mediaval hospital and the diseases treated there were different from those found in hospitals as they exist at the present day. In the first place, hospitals were not generally intended for the treatment of acute disease. For one thing, means of transport was difficult, and a patient suffering from such a disease as acute pneumonia could not be transported to hospital on horseback unless it happened that lie took ill at thc very gate of a monastery. In tlir: second place, thc early stages of chronic disease were not recognised. Thus, thcre was no means of diagnosing valvular disease of the heart, as such, before the end of the 18th century, and persons suffering from this condition would not be regarded as subjects for treatment until their condition was so advanced that the case might be classed as one of " dropsy." Similarly, diseases of the kidneys could hardly be recognised with exactness before Bright's treatisc of 1827. If it be true that syphilis did not occur, in a severe form at least, before 1494, many diseases such as locomotor ataxia, general paralysis and several other nervous conditions, must have been non-existent in the Middle Ages. Speaking generally, therefore, only persons who had been so disabled as to bc quite unfit for work and active life formed tlie class from which hospital patients were drawn in mediaeval times. Virchow lias shown that after the edict of Pope Innoce~itIII., early in the 13th century, directing tlie foundation of hospitals in all Sces, somc 150 liospitals of thc Holy Spirit were founded in Germally alo11e.l To this period belongs the founding or re-organisation of several great liospitals in London, and, at this time, numerous hospitals appear to have been founded in Scotland also. At the time of the Reformation, the following hospitals were in existence in Scotland, having come down from a much earlier period. One of the oldest hospitals in this country was that of Soltray or Soutra, in Midlothian, sixtcen miles south of Edinburgh, on the road leading to Kelso and England. This hospital more nearly fulfilled the conditions of a modern hospital than many others, because, being situated on an i~nportant route, it gave aid to travellers, -- -- 1 Virchow : " Gesalnmelte Abhandlungen aus dell~tiebiete der Oeffe~~tlichenll~rlirin,"Berlin, 1879, Vol. I I. y. 2.1. EARLY SCOTTISH HOSPITALS AND REGULATIONS FOR ISOLATION 3I - - - -- -- - - - pilgrims and persons of the district who were urgently in need of medical assistance. The hospital had been founded by Malcolm IV., in 1164, for the relief of pilgrims and poor and sickly people. In the ncighbourhood was a \vcll dedicated to the Holy Trinity, which was much frequented by sick and diseased persons bccause of its reputed curative properties. The hospital is mentioned several times during SOUTRA AISLE A prcsen:-day remnant of Sol~lraHospital the 13th century, but, apparently having become less necessary at a later date, the parish and church of Soutm werc annexed to Trinity College, in Edinburgh, where a hospital was founded by Mary of Gucldres, following on a Bull of Pope Pius 11. in 1460. Remnants of Soutra hospital, in a district which is now moorland, are still visiblc. On somc lands belonging to this hospital at St. Leonards, near Edinburgh, Robert Ballantine, Abbot of Holyrood, founded a hospital for seven distressed people. There wcre also in Edinburgh at the time of the Reformation a hospital in Bell's Wynd, known as the Maison Dieu, and another in St. Mary's \Yynd, for which the Town Council, in 1575, authoriscd the taking of a collection in St. Giles's Church. There is a referencc to this hospital in 1500, and it was re-roofed in I~oS, but the cleed of foundation appears to have bccn lost in 1583, when the Town Col~ncil autllorised 13aillic Michael Chisholnl to search for it.l A hospital is also mentioned in connection with the Chnrch of St. Mary de Campis, popularly known as the Kirk o' Field, which was one of the buildings burned by the English in 1544; so that in this year the religious community, not having means to rebuild it, sold the hospital to James, Earl of Arran, who built on it a lodging that afterwards was used as the College of Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh now stands upon this site. ~- -- I "Extracts from the Records of the B~lrgll of Edinbllrgh, 1573-1589," pp 33 and 314; and Extracts 1403-1526, pp. 79 and 1 17. TRINITY COLLEGE,CHURCHAND HOSPITAL, EDlNBURGll Fmrn Gorriorr ofRof/ro~ny'sPlatr q~ kdiaburglt i,r 1647 Q, Hlqh Street; 14. John Knox's hauas ; 2s. Car~ongate, with Beshed stands; 47. Dicksan's Close; 48, B1aekf"ars' Clole; .1L. 'I'ndriC's L'lore ; 50, Grsy'n Close : 57 Hnlkemton's Wynd. 55. Leirh Wynd ; 24. the Correct~onHouse. formerly Haspitsl rC our Lud.~;p. l.rinity Church ; t, T~irrilyHospital; 1. ~eith'Wynd Port; u. Paul's Work; h, Netherbow Port. The barden. later ueed (from 1876) ay the Botanic Garden. 1s aeco adjohio$ Trinity Church and Hospital EARLY SCOTTISH HOSPITALS AND REGULATIONS FOR ISOLATION 33 . .-- .-- . .-. A very important Edinburgh hospital was the Trinity Hospital, founded at the instigation of Queen Mary of Gueldres, in memory of her husband, James 11. The funds of several religious houses, including those of the Hospital of Soutra; were appropriated for the purpose of founding Trinity Hospital and its collegiate church,l and numerous references to it occur in the Town Council minutes of the following century. On 21st June, 1578, a minute of the Town Council. refers to the reorganisation in the hospital of Trinity College, where twelve furnished beds were now made ready for " pepill seiklie and vnabill to laubour for thair leving." These people were called " bedesmen," " bedrels," " betherells," or " beadles." They were given an allowance for food and clothing, and they had been obliged, prior to the Reformation, to carry out the duties, so far as they were able, of attendance on religious services twice daily, and of praying for the soul of the founder. In the minute of this date, nine persons were admitted. It is not specified what were their diseases, except in the case of Dauid Forester, who was a blind man. Of the nine, Jhonne Thomesoun retained his place only for about six weeks, being ejected on 2nd August, 157S, because he was proved to be " ane drunkard." On 9th August, Bessy Jhonnstoun, a widow, was added to the company, being a " pure impotent bedrell." Many gifts to the hospital are recorded in the following years, and, in 1581 and 1584, the roof and windows were re~aired.~The hospital continued its beneficent work for the sick and impotent up to the 19th century, and although the buildings disappeared to make way for the railway in 1845, its revenues are still employed by the Town Council in giving valued grants to aged and sick persons of the city. Another hospital in Edinburgh, of almost equal age with Trinity Hospital, was established by Thomas Spence, Bishop of Aberdeen, in the year 1479. It was situated on the opposite side of Leith Wynd from Trinity Hospital, was designed for the reception and maintenance of twelve men, and was known as the Hospital of Our Lady. Subsequently it received revenues from other benefactors, including a chapel dedicated to St. Paul. The Town Council of Edinburgh became proprietors of this charity under a grant by Queen Mary, and in a minute of 15th June, 1582, they refer to it as the " hospital1 of Sanct Pawles Work, callit our Lady Hospitall," and lay down an elaborate set of rules for the master of the hospital and the bedesmen. The latter were to be " na papistes, bot of the trew religioun." They were to be " not defylit with blame of ony notable vyce, bot of guid fame and conversatioun," and persons who would have exercised themselves in some honest trade if " seiknes, aige or impotencie " had not prevented them.3 This hospital, however, appears to have passed into desuetude, and in 1619 the buildings, having become ruinous, were reconstructed under the name p~ ~ I "Charters Relatiny to the City of Edinburgh, 1143-1540,'' Scottish Burgh Records Society, Edinburgh, 1871, pp. 84-119. "Extracts from the Records of tile Burg11 of Edinburgh, 1573-1589,'' pp. 77,80, 81. 553. 208, 211 and 328. "Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 1573-1589," pp. 564-567. C P;hl<LY SCO'I'TIJII 1IOSPI'L'hLS AND IIE(iULAT1ONS FOR ISOLATIVX 35 p~~-~ - - - - - . - - .- - . .- . .-........ -- - of Paul's Work, to receive boys and girls who sllould be taught a trade; and, Gnally, the Town Council converted it into a House of Correction. In 1650, this liospital was used for the soldiers of General Leslie's army wounded in the repulse of Oliver Cromwell, when he attacked Edinburgh. A hospital existed in conilection with the Convent of St. Catherine of Siena, inhabited by Dominican nuns, a short distance south of Edinburgh, in a district which has come to be called, by corruption, " Sciennes." The hospital, which was presumably originally a place for the reception of the neighbouring sick, appears to have reverted after the Reformation to the possession of the Town Council.